This Photo Sums It Up

For now, this is my favorite photo. It was taken after at least 3 minutes of this, and continued for a few minutes more. And after this darling little girl had a good look, she went and got her mom and then her sister and then kept coming back for several long stares.

Yes. This is what it feels like to live in China. Parents point us out to their children. Children point us out to their parents. Old people can't seem to get enough. Sometimes they do it openly and sometimes on the sly, and obviously it happens more than we see.

We are watched.

We are stared at.

We are photographed.

It is why keeping our light on is so important. I hope we reflect the light of Jesus Christ. I hope the people can feel my love for Him! It's all I can share for now.

(Greta did smile and acknowledged her, but the stare continued and continued and continued.....)

Comments

Mountains and Merry Christmas!

As we approach our second Christmas here, even though our hearts yearn for home and family, we're thankful for this 'assignment' to serve here in China. We have learned much, experienced much, gained greater perspectives and learned for ourselves the reality of walking with Jesus Christ. At this season we're extraordinarily thankful for Him. He is our Savior. He is our strength. He is our Friend. We can only hope to be a light to others here. This year we've had some mountains to climb--both physically and symbolically. Purple mountain in Nanjing Language acquisition is an ongoing challenge. Even Tom, who speaks quite well feels stretched at times, which should give you an idea of the struggle of the rest of us. I spend several hours a week learning and I'm still not speaking much and unable to understand responses when I am able to muster a few words. But, Jesus Christ has been with us on this mountain. Language acquisition is a process, not an even

Christmas 2023--A Wonderful Surprise!

Per our contract for living in China, our unmarried children get a free flight to come and visit us. Chandler is the only one who qualifies for that, but for quite some time, getting a visa to visit wasn't even a possibility. And when it did become a possibility, it was very expensive and required a 4 day stay in Washington DC or paying a whole lot of money for someone to go into the embassy to do that process for us. It was not really in consideration. But when Cache offered to do it for us while he was in DC for Thanksgiving, we decided to go to all of the effort to make it happen. We decided to keep it a secret from the girls so it would be an amazing Christmas surprise. We did mostly well on the surprise. Greta did hear me talking to Cache about the visa process one day back in November, but didn't think too much about it or ask further questions so we hoped that she hadn't really heard as I supposed. I also had up the map of the Seattle airport on my computer so

Dinner Guests

Before we moved to China, my dream life was to stay home and make dinner for my neighbors. If asked of a place I'd like to travel, I would usually comment that I would rather have a kitchen remodel than seeing far away places. That is because I have come to really enjoy having people over for dinner and a kitchen remodel would make that much easier on me--which I cared more about than seeing the world. (It also illustrates my extremely low need for adventure to be happy.) Thankfully I have been able to continue that hobby in China. It is a bit more of a challenge here because of an even smaller kitchen capacity, lack of ingredients and my concern about feeding Chinese people food they might actually like. For my personal records here are dinners I have photos of. Tina and James (our liaison for our landlady) Sherry, Talia & Stella (Tom's co workers; and Stella tutors me in Chinese) Penny (one of my Chinese teachers) Melissa's cousin (someone from CCID branch asked us

This Great Work

Search This Blog